Renew His Strength, Lord

I continue to check for news about my friend, David Hames, who remains buried beneath the crumpled Hotel Montana in Haiti.

This week has affected me in ways I never expected.

I wasn’t best friends with David in college and had lost touch with him until last year. Yet I am consumed with his experience and burdened for his safety. I am pretty much obsessed with his plight.

You know what I think it is? It’s God.

I’m sure others have been in similar situations (maybe during 9/11 or another large-scale tragedy), but this is a first for me. This is the first time a major news event has had microscopic proportions—the first time a news event has become personal.

And so, in the middle of this tragedy, God’s people are rallying. God’s people are crying out. God’s people are encouraging one another.

And it’s amazing.

I am exhilarated by the unity of our voices in begging for our friend. I am encouraged by the solidarity of our purpose in rescuing David. I am touched that David—a long-lost friend who, for all intents and purposes, is now a stranger to me—has such a community of God-honoring Christ-lovers interceding on his behalf.

The family of God is anonymous and instantly recognizable all at the same time. How wonderful Heaven will be: a great family reunion of strangers, yet kinfolk!

What I’m trying to say is that my faith has been strengthened in this ordeal. My belief, my hope, my courage in the Lord have been confirmed time and again by these living, breathing, “great clouds of witnesses” on earth right now.

Friends, we are waiting. But we serve a God who waits for nothing.

I’ve been thinking of those times of waiting where: 1. God delivered; and 2. God’s ultimate good purpose was fulfilled. A few examples:

• Noah and his family waiting out the storm for 40 days (it was another two weeks until they actually left the Ark)
• The Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness for 40 years
• Jonah in the belly of the fish for 3 days
• And of course, after Jesus’ crucifixion, his followers waiting for his resurrection

Lord God, 
We pray David’s (and all those trapped in earthquake rubble) waiting will soon come to an end. We pray his wait from your hand of providence will show all your glorious good purposes.
In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.